Saveurs de Corée
$$ | Dongcheng District
Don't let the French name fool you: this well-established restaurant serves thoroughly delicious Korean food. The beef stew is a particular hit, as are the kimchi pancakes.
36 Best Restaurants in Beijing, China
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Since imperial times, Beijing has drawn citizens from all corners of China, and the country's economic boom has only accelerated the culinary diversity of the capital. These days, diners can find food from the myriad cuisines of far-flung regions of China, as well as just about every kind of international food.
Highlights include rare fungi and flowers from Yunnan, chili-strewn Hunan cooking from Mao’s home province, Tibetan yak and tsampa (barley flour), mutton kebabs and grilled flatbreads from Xinjiang, numbingly spicy Sichuan cuisine, and chewy noodles from Shaanxi. And then there are ethnic foods from all over, with some—notably Italian, Japanese and Korean—in abundance.
You can spend as little as $5 per person for a decent meal or $100 and up on a lavish banquet. The variety of venues is also part of the fun, with five-star hotel dining rooms, holes-in-the-wall, and refurbished courtyard houses all represented. Reservations are always a good idea, especially for higher-end places, so ask your hotel to book you a table.
Beijingers tend to eat dinner around 6 pm, and many local restaurants will have closed their kitchens by 9 pm, though places that stay open until the wee hours aren’t hard to find. Tipping is not the custom although some larger, international restaurants will add a 15% service charge to the bill, as do five-star hotel restaurants. Be aware before you go out that small and medium venues only take cash payments or local bank cards; more established restaurants usually accept credit cards.
Yanjing, the local beer, together with the ubiquitous Tsingtao, is available everywhere in Beijing. A growing number of imported beer brands have entered the market, and Beijing has a burgeoning craft beer scene of its own. And now many Chinese restaurants now have extensive wine menus.
Siji Minfu
$ | Dongcheng District
This excellent restaurant, part of a local chain, says "yes" to seasonality and no to "MSG." Folks line up for over an hour to get a taste of its famous Peking duck.
Still Thoughts
$ | Dongcheng District
Though there's no meat on the menu, carnivores can still sate their hunger on mock Peking "duck," "fish" (made of tofu sheets with scales carved into it), and tasty "lamb" skewers that you'd be hard pressed to claim contain no meat at all. In fact, we'd suggest plumping for the straight-up vegetable dishes here, like stir-fried okra with mushrooms, steamed eggplant with sesame paste or the stone-pot-braised taro, which eschew novelty for sheer deliciousness. The restaurant is a little hard to find: it's inside the alley just east of the large Wahaha Hotel.
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Susu
$ | Dongcheng District
Tucked away down a dim alley north of the National Art Museum, this hip hutong eatery has quickly gained a following for Beijing's best Vietnamese food. Choose from various light and fresh summer rolls and salads to start, and be sure to order the succulent barbecued La Vong Fish, served on a bed of vermicelli with herbs, peanuts, crispy rice crackers, and shrimp, which goes well with beer from the local Slow Boat Brewery. The lovingly restored courtyard house has a gorgeous patio and rooftop seating for pleasant weather, but the beautifully furnished interiors aren't too shabby either.
Xian Lao Man
$ | Dongcheng District
You can (unofficially) bring your own booze to this airy Buddhist restaurant, but the main reason to come is to explore the weird, wonderful world of "fake meat" vegetarian dishes. Here, some of them seem utterly improbable (almost laughable); many are totally convincing; most are truly delicious.
Yue Bin
$ | Dongcheng District
Yue Bin was the first private restaurant to open in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution era, and its home-style cooking remains popular. The tiny, no-frills dining room is just big enough for half a dozen tables, where you'll see families chowing down on specialities such as suanni zhouzi, garlic-marinated braised pork shoulder.
